Peter Blake Mark Lawson Talks To...


Peter Blake

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Pop art, the mid-20th century visual movement, shares a name with pop music

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and Peter Blake has a significant place in the history of both.

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His record sleeves, including most famously Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,

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brought to a wider audience the techniques pop artists had developed - collages,

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still lives, self portraits.

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It used contemporary materials such as lapel badges,

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newspaper and magazine cuttings and advertising wrappings.

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Blake's work in pictures, album covers and book jackets

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is often inspired by his lifelong passion for collecting objects,

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'many of which featured in the show he curated at the Museum of Everything in London.'

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We're sitting in this gallery and looking around this exhibition

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of your own collections and others, a gallery-goer might now say, "There's a Peter Blake over there,"

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or, "That work looks influenced by Peter Blake," because you seem to have a very recognisable style.

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Do you have a sense of what the Peter Blake style is?

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Em, I do, yes. Absolutely.

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And I must say in recent years I've kind of...

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..taken advantage of it.

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I mean, there is a kind of Peter Blake Incorporated, almost, aspect of the work at the moment,

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where I take these motifs like a heart

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and a star and the rainbow

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and a target

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and almost claim them as my invention, which they're not.

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But I think they've become recognisable as my work.

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And I suppose these other ways of painting.

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There are a lot of clues, really, to pick up on on it.

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Some artists and writers, particularly later in their careers,

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have spoken of feeling trapped by their style, trying to get outside it to do something different.

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-Have you ever felt that frustration?

-Never. I've always been so diverse, from the very beginning.

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I think if I'd been... A lot of artists change towards the end of their lives, don't they?

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Abstract expressionists become realists and realists become abstract expressionists. In a way,

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I've always encompassed a lot of things anyway.

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At the moment, I'm painting collages, making some jewellery.

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So if I ever became bored with one aspect, I'd move across to another.

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-The tag "pop art" is almost inevitably applied. If we put your name in a search...

-"Godfather of".

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Godfather of, you are. Does that label ever feel irritating or limiting to you?

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Not really, because again it was a tiny section of what I've done.

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I think my take on the phrase "pop art",

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I...

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I tell a story that a group of us were having dinner in the very early '60s,

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Richard Smith, Robyn Denny, a group of painters, with Lawrence Alloway.

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And he was very much a mentor of the younger artists.

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And he was a critic very involved with the ICA.

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We were talking about what I was doing and I explained I was trying to make an art

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that was a parallel to pop music so you would read it in the same way.

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And he said, "What? A kind of pop art?" And I maintain that's how the phrase came about.

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I've been associated with it from the beginning

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and I think the problems came up when, for instance, in America

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it was never recognised really that there was any pop art in this country

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until Marco Livingstone put on a show at the RA

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and he reassessed the whole situation and suddenly put it all into perspective of what happened when.

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And I think at that point I began to get some kind of credit.

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In the way that Impressionism was originally an insult,

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it's sometimes been used in a disparaging way. People use it to suggest it's not serious art

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or high art.

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They do and perhaps it isn't.

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Certainly, it's always been a problem I've had to deal with

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that I think among my fellow painters, I think often I'm not...

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If you think of Frank Auerbach and me,

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you would think of me as a lighter artist than Frank,

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which is...I mean...

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I love his paintings and he's a friend, but you would say he's a more serious artist than me

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and I kind of accept that. As I say, I've been very diverse.

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I haven't chosen really to take that path of very high art.

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It's always had a vulgarity, it's always been populist, so I accept that.

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# Well, the joke's on me I'm off to join the circus... #

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Blake is 29.

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Of the four, he's much the most established.

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His cheerful, uncompromising comments on the modern world have been exhibited at the Royal Academy

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and he's sold pictures to all sorts of organisations in America as well as in this country.

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# ..made a crying clown out of me

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-#

-Goodbye, cruel world...

-#

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Pop art, it was seen as being something very modern, immediate and young,

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in that same way that there's a generation now who we call young British artists

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and they're getting older.

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Did that become a burden that you were associated with that?

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No, I think not. Because of this diversity, I've never relied on it for a living

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and I've never kind of... It's never been my one aim.

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So it wasn't a problem. Still isn't.

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A couple of your earliest serious works, Children Reading Comics, which is from 1954,

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and ABC Minors, 1955,

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they seem to a viewer to open up your childhood to us, or aspects of it,

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and what seems crucial is

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that you were drenched in popular culture, in entertainment, from very early on.

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Yeah, probably.

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I was seven when the Second World War started, so I was really a child of the war.

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I was evacuated. Until I was 14, that was childhood.

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Suddenly, the war ended, I came back to Dartford.

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I got a place at Gravesend School of Art, so adulthood started instantly when childhood stopped,

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in a curious way. So at 14 I was at art school. The first year at the Royal College of Art in 1953,

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it was compulsory that you were in the life room the whole time.

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There would have been 10 life models at any time, with crowds all around.

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And then you were released from that and suddenly you were on your own.

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It was at that point those pictures started, so in a way childhood was only five years ago.

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So I think I...in that moment when you choose where you'll go,

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I think I kind of chose to be, at that point, autobiographical.

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So the picture of the two little boys is my brother and my cousin.

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They're wearing their ABC Minors badges, so I was still painting about a childhood that was barely over.

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And it went on from there. I think I've never lost...

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-I'm still a child, in a curious way.

-I want to go into the autobiography of those paintings.

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They tell us that from very early on comics in one case and cinema in the others,

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-you had a great exposure to those things.

-My mum used to take me to the cinema almost every day.

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Almost, probably, from the age of two.

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So I would have been seeing Shirley Temple films

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and the big Disney films as they came out. Snow White I would have seen when it came out.

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And then as I got a little bit older she would take me in the evening.

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So I had this background of the history of cinema

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and I must have seen... There was a certain Bowery Boys film that was always the support film.

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I must have seen it 100 times. And then the interest...

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My mum and aunt took me to the professional wrestling

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in 1947, so I was 15 then. And I've had a lifelong interest in that.

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And circuses and funfairs are things I loved from a child.

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So, you know, it was that strata of entertainment that I was,

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that I started off with and have kind of stayed with.

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And some of it comes out, the movies for example, very directly, with references to Tarzan, Wizard of Oz

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-and those kinds of films. They have stayed with you.

-Very much.

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They've become even stronger. In recent years, there's been

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quite a lot of painting and things

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about the kind of phenomena of a girl moving into womanhood.

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And there are so many instances. The Wizard of Oz does it,

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Snow White does it,

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of children in puberty in danger and usually suddenly rescued.

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Dorothy wakes up and...

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And I think that's an area of life that I've been intrigued with.

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Your mother's fascination with cinema.

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It seems not excessive, but impressive that somebody would go virtually every day,

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-but she just had that fascination.

-People did then.

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I think what happened was there was no entertainment during the war

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so there was an enormous surge in people going out to the cinema, football matches.

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You had crowds of 60,000 every week.

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So people were flooding back. We used to go to speedway, stock car racing.

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All these things started up again.

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Was there any sense with either of your parents of an artistic streak or anywhere in the family?

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Looking back, there was. They had no chance to go to art school.

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Mum came down from South Shields and I was born when she was 20.

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She probably came down when she was 18 and was a nurse

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and moved towards being a seamstress. And probably now would have gone to college

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and done the fashion course.

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And Dad was an electrician. He drew beautiful little drawings for us of things he was interested in,

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like steam trains and boats.

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But it's hypothetical.

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Now I think they would have gone to art school, but there wasn't the chance to.

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And I was very lucky. When I went at the age of 14,

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there were grants, the schools were opening back up. Perfect time, really.

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As soon as profiles started to be written about you, they would always say "working-class artist".

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When, growing up, did you become aware of what that meant, being working class?

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I think if one has to...

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If you contextualise it, I think I'm upper working class, whatever that might be.

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My parents worked. That accounts for that. I was never...

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We were never poor,

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really poor.

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And we lived in a nice house, so we were upper working class.

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But later on you become far more aware. When you meet really upper class posh people,

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you realise how working class you probably are. It's relative.

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As you mentioned, you were part of that particular British generation of wartime evacuees.

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Many people who that happened to have very vivid memories. Do you?

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Extraordinarily vivid.

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When war was declared on a Sunday morning and that speech was on the radio,

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there was an immediate panic.

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One person in our street had an Anderson shelter, so all the children rushed to it.

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We looked towards Germany, expecting invading armies instantly, and we were evacuated the next day.

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Unofficially.

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There was someone in Dartford who came from a little village in Essex,

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so we were evacuated to a village called Helions Bumpstead, which is almost a comedy village.

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It was next to Steeple Bumpstead, which was a comedy village name.

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It's right on the intersection of Essex, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk.

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Incredibly rural and remote. And then what happened was that because we were evacuated,

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there was a curious system that you still took the examination of where you'd come from.

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So I took the examination for grammar school all by myself in Steeple Bumpstead school.

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-I didn't get in.

-But it was for Kent.

-Yes. My brother and sister both got into the grammar schools,

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which were very good in Dartford. I then got into the technical school

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and when I went for the interview, they said, "The art school is part of the technical school.

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"If you want to go to art school, you can pop round the corner, do a drawing exam and go there."

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So it was presented to me, at the age of 14, this whole thing of starting at a very definite point.

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I never had any plans to be an art student. It started from then.

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Another piece of luck is that you didn't specialise too soon in any one art form.

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The kind of training you got, impossible now, is you were trained in almost all available art forms.

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Yes, I did what was the last year of the Intermediate Examination.

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That had gone back since the mid-19th century.

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It's the same teaching I would have got then. You did life drawing, costumed life drawing,

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silversmithing, woodwork, stone carving,

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wood engraving,

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architecture, anatomy, and my chosen craft was Roman lettering,

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which was very much a discipline.

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So that was the Intermediate, then I did the commercial art course.

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The thing is about that, I only did half the course,

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so, in a way, even now I'm a kind of rogue designer

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because I don't...I don't know what I would have learnt in the second part.

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I did typesetting and Roman lettering and I got halfway through,

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but I do things, both as a painter and as a graphic designer, because of my background

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that if I was a real painter, I wouldn't do and if I was a real graphic designer I wouldn't do.

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Luckily, I have this rogue element.

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And also lucky, that very broad training has led, as you referred to, to the variety of your work.

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It has. Certainly in printmaking.

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I mean, both those disciplines in later life I went back to.

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Having been taught wood engraving,

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in the early '70s, I retook it. I thought I'd like to do it again

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and I got books and I vaguely remembered how to hold the engraving tool.

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I got books on how to do it, I did some practice blocks

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and then I cut a portfolio called Side Show.

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They're incredibly detailed. I don't know how I did them.

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There's a strong sense in what you've said of being an accidental artist,

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other people making the decisions directing you to art, then painting.

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Was there a point at which ambition kicked in and you started to think, "I really want to do this"?

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I wanted to be a painter, once I was at art school. But I wanted to be a painter anyway.

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That's what was so exciting. My teacher said, "You'll never make a living." Not me particularly,

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but nobody at that point would make a living being a painter.

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So you'd do the commercial art course and you'd got that to fall back on.

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As the graphic designers were going through my work, I'd sent one little oil painting of my sister.

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Sir Robin Darwin happened to be sitting on that selection committee at the Royal College of Art

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and said, "I think we ought to show this work to the painting committee," and it was taken over

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and they accepted me.

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Obviously, counter histories are difficult and sometimes futile,

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but you must have reflected if you had gone to grammar school.

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Do you think it would have come out in some way, the art?

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Probably.

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I mean, who knows which direction anyone might go in?

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I was once asked what I would do if I wasn't a painter

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and after deep thought I went through maybe I would have worked in wood in some way

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and then I decided I would have been a professional wrestler. So who knows where one might have gone?

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-Are there painters who don't like painting?

-Well, it's hard work.

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-I'm sure it's mentally hard as well.

-Well, it's a strain.

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It's a very nerve... I mean, I haven't done it.

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Normally at home I go through a whole ritual

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where I dust the table and polish it and I lay out the paints and I get everything ready

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-and I put a record on and I walk around with it. It's like a fighter.

-Build up.

-You build up to it.

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When you started out, did you have a theory of art, a kind of manifesto in your head?

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-Or was it all just instinct?

-I had a good backing of history of art

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by the time I started to paint.

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I knew pretty much about painting. I knew I was a figurative painter,

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I knew that I was interested in the Magic Realists in New York.

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I had my influences.

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And my fellow painters in the year ahead of me were Frank Auerbach and Joe Tilson.

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So I was also aware of the seriousness of painting.

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In my year was... was Leon Kossoff

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and then the following year was Richard Smith and Robyn Denny.

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So all around me were all these other kinds of art going on, so I was aware of the Abstract Expressionists.

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And I think if you are a painter,

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you...you automatically go where you're taken almost.

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I knew I was a realist painter.

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I always had this ambition to be an Abstract Expressionist

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and I finally dealt with it many years later and did a picture

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called Am I Too Late To Be An Abstract Expressionist?

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I tried it, splashed some paint on.

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But you...

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I suppose it's like a kind of track almost that you get onto and it leads you through.

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You almost don't make the decisions. You just find you're on a path.

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One path from the 1950s and '60s that goes through your career is the use of collage

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in many famous pieces. It seems to me that that was increasingly part of this great stream

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of competing images - TV and advertising and movies and magazines.

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And that in a way you wanted to reflect that, the kaleidoscope of images.

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I was actually told at a very specific time about collage.

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Richard Smith, who I shared a flat with, taught me about Kurt Schwitters.

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He said, "He picks up bus tickets," so for years I always included a bus ticket.

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I felt that a collage always had to have a bus ticket in it.

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But once it was offered to me as a medium, I embraced it and I'm still using it to this day.

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I think it's not easier than painting, but it's...

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In a way, it's using another material and it's using found art

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and the very early collages were exactly like Schwitters'.

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I would find a bit of wood and a bus ticket and maybe some sweet wrapping

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and make these little tiny collages.

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And it's gone on from then where now I'm making a kind of collage on the computer.

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I can't do it, but we...

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We've done a whole recent series called The Butterfly Man, six feet by five, and designed on the computer.

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-It's exactly the same technique.

-You say that you can't do it,

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but you could, presumably?

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There isn't time for me to get really proficient. I don't want to just play with it. And I'm a Luddite as well.

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I don't wear a watch, don't have a mobile phone and there's no way I'll ever work a computer.

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In one of those early collages, On The Balcony,

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another thing that collages do is put art within popular culture or vice versa.

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So you have magazine covers in that and that was one thing going on in the '60s which was useful for you -

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-the rise of the magazine.

-It's interesting you say it's a collage. It's a painting.

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-Oh.

-No collage.

-Of course!

-No collage at all, but that's one of the art games I've played with myself.

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The sort of trick playing of making a collage look like a painting

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and sometimes making a painting be like a collage.

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-I know you know it's a painting...

-Yes.

-..but it's interesting that you called it a collage.

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But what I was doing with that painting, it was a set subject at the Royal College of Art.

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You were given two choices. I recall that the other choice was the story of Lot, a biblical story.

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Or On The Balcony. So I researched and found all the "on the balconies" that I could

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and then presented them with three children sitting on a bench holding up magazine versions.

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Ladies and gentlemen, presenting Her Royal Majesty.

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TRUMPET FANFARE

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-#

-There she goes Her Royal Majesty

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-#

-She's the Queen...

-#

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This picture is an oil painting.

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There are about 27 different versions of On The Balcony in it.

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When I did this picture, people said, "Why did you bother to paint them? Why didn't you stick them on?"

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You just can't win.

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So that was the reason for that particular painting,

0:23:490:23:53

but by then in the Air Force it was part of my week to go to a little house on the aerodrome

0:23:530:24:00

and buy Picture Post. So right from the beginning I've loved magazines, and still do.

0:24:000:24:06

That's the other social subset you belong to, apart from evacuees - the National Service generation.

0:24:060:24:13

Was that a happy time or just an inconvenience?

0:24:130:24:17

It was an inconvenience. I'd already got in to the Royal College. I had this to look forward to.

0:24:180:24:24

I didn't have an awful time. You'd be 30 men in a Nissen hut.

0:24:240:24:29

There would be nights with fights and play fights and beds being turned over, pillows thrown.

0:24:290:24:34

I would blissfully sleep through it. I was incredibly shy until then.

0:24:340:24:40

Pathologically shy.

0:24:400:24:42

And suddenly to be with 30 men, you can't be shy.

0:24:420:24:46

There's no way you can be shy, so it was good for that. I met people I wouldn't have met otherwise.

0:24:460:24:52

And you come out of the Second World War and we're moving into the Cold War era.

0:24:520:24:58

Did you believe, as many people did at that time, that you'd end up, your generation, fighting a war?

0:24:580:25:05

I was in the Air Force at the time of the Korean War.

0:25:050:25:09

It was unlikely I would have gone. I was a teleprinter operator.

0:25:090:25:13

I think it just overlapped. I was in from '51 to '53.

0:25:130:25:18

So the possibility was there.

0:25:180:25:21

And certainly the possibility that there would be a war with Russia

0:25:210:25:26

was very much in the air.

0:25:260:25:29

But I didn't ever think I would be fighting. Luckily, I was too young to fight in the World War

0:25:290:25:35

and I never envisaged I would actually be a fighting machine.

0:25:350:25:40

-And you never went to the opposite extreme of being a pacifist or conscientious objector?

-No.

0:25:400:25:47

And David, to his credit, David Hockney did.

0:25:470:25:51

And he had horrible jobs in hospitals for his two years.

0:25:510:25:56

And some of the other artists, some went to great lengths not to do it.

0:25:560:26:01

There was a trick of pretending you were gay

0:26:010:26:05

and a couple of people shot their toes off, I think. A lot of people pretended they were mad.

0:26:050:26:12

I kind of didn't bother. I didn't want to shoot a toe off.

0:26:120:26:16

I just accepted that I would do the National Service. I had the Royal College to look forward to.

0:26:160:26:22

It was a missing two years, but it was OK. I travelled a bit.

0:26:220:26:26

I went to Belfast, I went to some nice places in the West Country. It was OK.

0:26:260:26:34

One of the key early paintings, Self-Portrait With Badges, which I've always liked a great deal,

0:26:340:26:40

there are many things going on there. It's technically striking.

0:26:400:26:44

You get portraits within a portrait in an almost Magritte way.

0:26:440:26:48

What led you to that painting?

0:26:480:26:50

I was doing it specifically to send to the John Moores competition in 1961.

0:26:500:26:56

And I think the idea, in a way, was almost to present myself...

0:26:560:27:00

It was going back to... to Children With Badges.

0:27:000:27:04

At that point, an adult wouldn't have worn a collection of badges.

0:27:040:27:08

They would have worn one badge, you know, if they were in the Women's Institute or something.

0:27:080:27:15

I think what was interesting about it, which is the point you're making,

0:27:150:27:19

is that the badges kind of added information.

0:27:190:27:23

Curiously, it's false information because I only had those badges.

0:27:230:27:27

I'd only collected, like, 20.

0:27:270:27:30

One of them said, "I'm madly for Adlai" and I don't think I even knew who Adlai Stevenson was!

0:27:300:27:37

So some of it is false information,

0:27:370:27:40

but some... I like Elvis and I was holding an Elvis magazine with Elvis talking to Tuesday Weld.

0:27:400:27:47

So hints about what I was interested in were coming out.

0:27:470:27:52

The Elvis identification was real?

0:27:520:27:55

The Elvis...

0:27:550:27:57

Again, he isn't my favourite rock'n'roller.

0:27:570:28:01

I prefer Chuck Berry and Little Richard and the Everly Brothers,

0:28:010:28:05

but if you're painting about icons,

0:28:050:28:08

you have to take the chief icon

0:28:080:28:10

so if it's a blonde actress, it's got to be Marilyn Monroe.

0:28:100:28:17

'If it's a young French actress, it's got to be Brigitte Bardot.'

0:28:170:28:21

This is like living in Girls' Town.

0:28:230:28:26

If it's a rock'n'roller, it's got to be Elvis. So I accepted that he is the main motif, the main idol.

0:28:300:28:37

And then I've got a big collection of Elvis material

0:28:370:28:42

and I've made quite a lot of art including him.

0:28:420:28:45

One of the very early pop art pictures was two transfers that you got in Boyfriend magazine

0:28:450:28:51

of Elvis and Cliff. Well, I was only a Cliff fan for about a day, I think.

0:28:510:28:57

I saw him at Chiswick Empire

0:28:570:29:00

when he was really young and he was brilliant.

0:29:000:29:04

As soon as he did Living Doll, I stopped being a fan.

0:29:040:29:08

Why such an extreme reaction?

0:29:080:29:10

It was a horrible song!

0:29:100:29:13

The other striking thing about that Self-Portrait With Badges is you were already 29 at the time.

0:29:140:29:20

And yet you're entirely recognisable as you are now.

0:29:200:29:23

Do you paint yourself slightly older or was that accurate?

0:29:230:29:28

Pretty accurate.

0:29:280:29:30

I think probably... Clearly, I've changed a lot,

0:29:310:29:36

but I've more or less got the same hair and more or less got the same beard. It's got longer and shorter

0:29:360:29:42

and it's greyer now, but I haven't changed that much.

0:29:420:29:47

From very early on there are paintings that are abandoned or unfinished.

0:29:470:29:52

You've always had a very fluid attitude to what is meant by completed with a painting.

0:29:520:29:59

Yes, I think I've had this attitude that everything is always in progress.

0:29:590:30:04

And in a curious way

0:30:040:30:06

I very rarely have completed a picture to my intentions.

0:30:060:30:11

If I'm doing a portrait, I would paint the eye

0:30:110:30:16

and then each eyelash and then I'd get involved with whether there was a piece of dust on the eyelash.

0:30:160:30:22

So it's infinitesimal. In a way, I never achieve what I set out or what I see in my mind.

0:30:220:30:28

So always everything is in progress.

0:30:280:30:32

I never abandon anything. There might be pictures in the studio that by now I know I'll never finish,

0:30:320:30:39

but they're in progress still.

0:30:390:30:41

I'll never make the decision. Only that will be decided when I stop.

0:30:410:30:47

-Although you have made the decision that they won't be finished.

-Well, usually they have to go.

0:30:470:30:53

I mean, with Self-Portrait With Badges, Robyn Denny arrived with the van

0:30:530:30:59

that was taking them all and I was still working on it. They carried it out and drove it to Liverpool.

0:30:590:31:06

But if you look at the shoes in that, one is painted, the other is very loosely painted.

0:31:060:31:12

There's a little strip of detail. That was all I had time to do.

0:31:120:31:17

So I accepted the unfinishedness of it and I think it's become part of recognising what I do.

0:31:170:31:24

A good example to me is the 1962 Beatles,

0:31:240:31:28

where George Harrison isn't, in fact, finished, is he?

0:31:280:31:32

None of them are, really. Again, it must have been time running out.

0:31:320:31:37

What happened with that painting, in each corner there's a little white empty panel.

0:31:370:31:43

My intention was to get them to autograph it.

0:31:430:31:46

Paul was the first person to see it

0:31:460:31:49

and without actually refusing to autograph it, he managed to leave without autographing it.

0:31:490:31:55

I think he wasn't flattered by the way I painted him.

0:31:550:31:59

Then there was no point in trying to get them after that.

0:31:590:32:03

But it's the same phenomena.

0:32:030:32:05

There are usually areas left unpainted.

0:32:050:32:09

And some of the classic dates that are given at the end of a painting, it's an astonishingly wide period.

0:32:090:32:17

A Mad Tea Party At Watts Tower, 1968 to 1992,

0:32:170:32:21

which is 24 years, isn't it?

0:32:210:32:24

-But during that period there would be years when you wouldn't go near it?

-Probably.

0:32:240:32:30

The longest time was the portrait of David Hockney in the Spanish interior.

0:32:300:32:35

That I started

0:32:350:32:38

in, I think, '64 and I think I finished that...

0:32:380:32:42

..probably it was about thirty years.

0:32:430:32:47

But I wouldn't be working on it all the time. Again, it's not finished!

0:32:470:32:52

I could have it back and work on it some more.

0:32:520:32:55

I wondered in terms of inspiration. Can it only happen while you're painting? In a restaurant,

0:32:550:33:01

-you wouldn't think of a detail for a painting?

-I might. I keep notebooks.

0:33:010:33:06

I always carry a notebook and I take notes.

0:33:060:33:10

I don't think I've ever had an uncontrollable urge

0:33:100:33:14

where I've leapt from the dinner table and ran back to the studio.

0:33:140:33:18

I'm sure there are artists who have. I've never done that.

0:33:180:33:22

In your notebooks, you write down words or sketches?

0:33:220:33:26

Yes, little drawings and lists of things.

0:33:260:33:29

I've become an almost obsessive list maker and if I think of a series of words or an idea

0:33:290:33:37

or something I might paint in the future, it's a memory aid, really.

0:33:370:33:43

Apart from the connection with pop art, another connection that always comes up is The Beatles

0:33:430:33:49

because of the painting and Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

0:33:490:33:54

A lot of people who hung out with The Beatles suffered the delusion they were an honorary fifth Beatle.

0:33:540:34:01

Did you ever have that yourself?

0:34:010:34:04

Well, I suppose, in a curious way, I'm still very close friends with Paul

0:34:050:34:10

and went to his son James's birthday party last week,

0:34:100:34:14

so only a couple of days ago we were round the piano having a sing-song with Paul McCartney,

0:34:140:34:21

so I would count myself as a friend.

0:34:210:34:25

And I talked at length to Olivia Harrison.

0:34:250:34:29

If George were alive, he would be a friend.

0:34:290:34:33

Ringo and I have never particularly got on.

0:34:330:34:36

And John, I would say I was a friend of them, yeah.

0:34:360:34:40

And John had quite a strong artistic side, didn't he?

0:34:400:34:45

He did, absolutely. He was at the art school.

0:34:450:34:49

The first time we met,

0:34:490:34:51

in the early '60s,

0:34:510:34:54

it couldn't have been long after that particular John Moores competition we talked about in '61,

0:34:540:35:00

and I won the Junior Prize, which is artists under 35.

0:35:000:35:06

And it came up in conversation, the painting. He said, "You shouldn't have won. Stuart Sutcliffe should."

0:35:060:35:14

So right from the beginning, he was abrasive. But that was the way he was, part of his personality.

0:35:140:35:20

And he was a very interesting, nice man.

0:35:200:35:24

That period, the '60s and The Beatles, is now a fabled period.

0:35:240:35:28

Did it feel like that at the time? Did you think these were extraordinary times?

0:35:280:35:34

You were aware that exciting things were happening. It was very much a renaissance, a rebirth.

0:35:340:35:40

I suppose the other answer to that is that I've never, ever done any drugs.

0:35:400:35:46

I've never smoked a joint or had any drugs,

0:35:460:35:50

and that was an integral part of the '60s, really.

0:35:500:35:54

I remember an evening with people who were literally on an LSD trip.

0:35:540:35:59

They came to my studio and said, "You've got to take LSD! Your life is incomplete."

0:35:590:36:05

So I've had people begging me to take drugs and not.

0:36:050:36:09

So I missed that whole aspect.

0:36:090:36:12

I wondered about that. A lot of artists and musicians were tempted

0:36:120:36:16

because they thought it improved their art, psychedelic art. You were never tempted at all?

0:36:160:36:22

I was tempted, but I never accepted.

0:36:230:36:26

And I think part of that was possibly technical.

0:36:260:36:30

It was smoking. I had smoked as a kid and stopped when I was 12.

0:36:310:36:36

I'd kind of forgotten how to smoke. When I was passed a joint, I was embarrassed that I'd do it wrong.

0:36:360:36:43

Then, by chance, the next time I chose not to do it, but it was partly technical.

0:36:430:36:48

# Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band... #

0:36:480:36:53

One of the clearly iconic works, the Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover,

0:36:530:36:59

how did that come about?

0:36:590:37:02

The Beatles had commissioned a cover already and it had been done by Simon and Marijke,

0:37:020:37:08

who later painted the front of the Apple shop. It was a very psychedelic, kind of fairyland cover.

0:37:080:37:15

Robert Fraser saw it and Robert was a great friend of both the Beatles and the Stones

0:37:150:37:21

and was my art dealer at the gallery I was with at the time.

0:37:210:37:26

And he said, "In years to come, it'll just be another psychedelic cover.

0:37:260:37:31

"Why don't you do a cover with 'a fine artist'?"

0:37:310:37:36

And he said, "Why don't you use one of my artists?" He recommended me.

0:37:360:37:41

They'd already got the concept of being Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

0:37:410:37:47

and that was to do with the fact that they felt they couldn't ever tour as The Beatles again,

0:37:470:37:53

but maybe they could tour as Sgt Pepper. They knew they couldn't, but it was a concept.

0:37:530:37:59

I think Paul had already had the kind of idea of them being in a park.

0:37:590:38:04

And my main contribution was to add this kind of magic crowd.

0:38:050:38:10

If we did it by making cut-outs and eventually using waxworks, we could choose who their fans would be.

0:38:100:38:17

-I then asked John, I asked them all to give me a list of people.

-Uh-huh.

0:38:170:38:21

I can't remember them all. That was a guru and that's Aleister Crowley,

0:38:210:38:27

-Mae West, Lenny Bruce...

-Ah.

-And Stockhausen. That was one of John's choices, I think.

0:38:270:38:34

-WC Fields.

-Who's that?

0:38:340:38:37

I think it's... I'm not quite sure, but I think it's Jung, probably.

0:38:370:38:42

-The whole thing has always been wreathed in mystery.

-I know!

-Mainly contrived.

0:38:420:38:48

We didn't do it. It just... When there were rumours that Paul was dead and this was a stand-in,

0:38:480:38:54

one of the rumours was that because this hand was above his head, it was the sign that he'd died.

0:38:540:39:01

In fact, it's Issy Bonn waving to his fans!

0:39:010:39:04

Beautiful.

0:39:040:39:06

-Did you ever listen to any of the music?

-I did. I was in the studio.

0:39:060:39:11

Most evenings we would go in and hear what they were doing.

0:39:110:39:16

I mean, you have incredible memories of going in and seeing John in the corner

0:39:160:39:21

just doing the kind of hellos for one of the songs.

0:39:210:39:25

Or an evening when we went into the foyer of Abbey Road

0:39:250:39:30

and there was a great big carpet laid out and George was sitting round it with about 10 Indian musicians.

0:39:300:39:37

And he leapt to his feet and so did they and we met them.

0:39:370:39:41

We walked through and they carried on recording George's song, the Indian-inspired song.

0:39:410:39:47

And one particular night, Paul said, "Come back to the house

0:39:470:39:52

"and listen to this song Lovely Rita Meter Maid." So we heard it the day it was recorded.

0:39:520:39:58

Particularly given John's strong views on art, when the art work was revealed to them,

0:39:580:40:05

was that a tense moment?

0:40:050:40:07

They didn't ever really...

0:40:070:40:10

I mean, in a way, they've never said thank you. They didn't respond that much.

0:40:100:40:15

We were paid £200 and Robert Fraser, who was probably stoned out of his mind anyway,

0:40:150:40:22

signed the contract and signed away any rights I had. Certainly I had no royalties.

0:40:220:40:28

But he also signed away the copyright, so people write to me for permission to do something

0:40:280:40:34

-and I have to refer them to The Beatles' management.

-Does that make you angry?

-It did.

0:40:340:40:40

-Over the years I've been angry.

-You could have made tens of millions.

-Oh, if Robert had said,

0:40:400:40:46

"They'll give you a penny for each record..." I mean, Paul is a multi-multi-multi-millionaire.

0:40:460:40:52

And...

0:40:520:40:54

And I only once have kind of touched half a million.

0:40:540:40:59

So I'm not... I suppose that is rich to a lot of people,

0:41:000:41:05

but it's not compared to The Beatles. I could have been very rich.

0:41:050:41:09

Do you ever talk about it with Paul?

0:41:090:41:13

No. In a way, I think the friendship is more important.

0:41:130:41:17

He perhaps should have talked to me, but I wasn't going to say, "Look, Paul,

0:41:170:41:23

"why don't you make up for it and give me some money?"

0:41:230:41:27

And now I'm resigned to it, so in a way, emotionally, it's gone. It's not a worry.

0:41:270:41:33

We talked about the origins of the term pop art and it was very strongly used in America.

0:41:330:41:39

I'm interested in your relationship particularly with Andy Warhol.

0:41:390:41:42

There's a certain overlap with the Marilyn Monroe images. Was he an important figure?

0:41:420:41:48

He wasn't an influence, no.

0:41:480:41:51

We never got on. We met about eight times and he hardly spoke.

0:41:510:41:56

I, believe it or not, then didn't speak that much.

0:41:560:42:00

The first time, he took me all round The Factory and showed me everything that was going on.

0:42:000:42:06

And the last time he came over and had a show.

0:42:060:42:10

He painted a British show of dogs.

0:42:100:42:13

Especially for London.

0:42:130:42:15

And Michael Chow gave a dinner for him at Mr Chow's

0:42:150:42:20

and we were all upstairs at the other end of the room

0:42:200:42:24

and at one point Michael came over and said, "Andy said he'd love to meet you," as though we'd never met.

0:42:240:42:30

I said, "Come on! We've met eight times. We've never had anything to say. I'm not going to come over."

0:42:300:42:36

And now I think that was so stupid and churlish and I wish I'd gone over and said hello again.

0:42:360:42:42

There's much argument even now over Warhol's reputation with detractors and defenders.

0:42:420:42:48

-Where do you think he ranks artistically?

-Oh, now I think he's one of the greats.

0:42:480:42:53

I mean, the great icons are Andy's Warhol, Andy's Elvis,

0:42:530:42:59

Lichtenstein's early battle pictures.

0:42:590:43:03

And I don't much like Lichtenstein, but they are great pop art icons.

0:43:030:43:09

Your British near contemporary, David Hockney,

0:43:090:43:12

there's a conversation with him through your work. There are various pieces.

0:43:120:43:18

That is an artistic friendship, that one.

0:43:180:43:24

It's both an artistic friendship and just a friendship.

0:43:240:43:28

I've done Desert Island Discs. I did it with Roy Plomley and then again with Sue Lawley.

0:43:280:43:34

The first time they said, "What would you like your luxury item to be?" I said, "Can it be David Hockney?"

0:43:340:43:41

They said, "A David Hockney?" I said, "No, can I take David Hockney?

0:43:410:43:46

"We're good friends. We could talk about art on the island and we could draw together."

0:43:460:43:52

And they said, "No, you can't take a person," So that's the level of our friendship.

0:43:520:43:59

The Brotherhood of Ruralists,

0:43:590:44:01

which was the second big movement you were involved with,

0:44:010:44:05

Pop Art and a more formal movement...

0:44:050:44:08

Was that a conscious change of direction after the '60s?

0:44:080:44:12

This was the '70s. You wanted to do something different?

0:44:120:44:15

It came out of that. My life is very much split into decades.

0:44:150:44:19

And literally at the end of the '60s, there was...

0:44:190:44:23

It wasn't a direct feeling - "oh, weren't the '60s great? Let's have a change."

0:44:230:44:28

But I think people were tired and a lot of people moved out from London.

0:44:280:44:33

It turned into that kind of self-sufficiency mood of the '70s.

0:44:330:44:38

And we were part of that.

0:44:380:44:41

I went to see David Inshaw and through David we met Graham Arnold

0:44:410:44:47

who was at the college at the same time as me.

0:44:470:44:50

We were having dinner one night, a group of us,

0:44:500:44:54

and talking art and talking about the Pre-Raphaelites.

0:44:540:44:58

I think it came up, "Which Pre-Raphaelite would you have liked to have been?"

0:44:580:45:03

"I would have liked to have been John Everett Millais."

0:45:030:45:07

In a way, it came out of that talking.

0:45:070:45:10

We had a meal on each solstice, so in the winter we would have an indoor feast.

0:45:100:45:15

In the summer, we would have a picnic.

0:45:150:45:18

And finally, we actually gave it a name and became a group and had a manifesto.

0:45:180:45:24

And at that point, art politically, it was very unpopular.

0:45:240:45:29

Our manifesto was that love was a reason to paint, sentimentality...

0:45:290:45:34

The word "sentimentality", which is a filthy word in the art world,

0:45:340:45:39

was a valid reason to make a painting,

0:45:390:45:42

so we got a lot of stick from the critics and we answered back.

0:45:420:45:46

Brian Sewell had a concerted attack on Kitaj and Hockney and I for years.

0:45:460:45:52

He seems to have eased up now, but he would write a review of somebody else

0:45:520:45:57

and then end it by saying, "But they're nowhere near as bad as the Kitaj exhibition."

0:45:570:46:03

He cam... You know, he had a campaign against us.

0:46:030:46:07

But it was his job to. He worked for The Standard.

0:46:070:46:10

I think if he wasn't nasty, he would have lost his job, but that's by the bye.

0:46:100:46:15

It came to a natural end for me when Jann Haworth and I separated in '79.

0:46:150:46:21

I came back to London, so by definition...

0:46:210:46:25

A ruralist is a city person who moves to the country,

0:46:250:46:28

so by definition, I'd come back, so I was no longer...

0:46:280:46:32

-The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was quite a dangerous model to take.

-Absolutely.

0:46:320:46:37

-It had led to terrible sexual complication and fallings-out and everything.

-Yeah.

0:46:370:46:42

In a way, the Ruralists didn't quite follow that, but it got complicated.

0:46:420:46:47

A series of works in the 1990s,

0:46:480:46:51

Exhibition of a Rhinoceros in Venice

0:46:510:46:54

and the Madonna of Venice Beach series...

0:46:540:46:57

They're bringing a lot of what we talked about together.

0:46:570:47:01

They bring together the two sides - your knowledge of classical art, but also modern art.

0:47:010:47:06

They are a blurring of those two things or a conversation.

0:47:060:47:10

I was the third artist-in-residence at the National Gallery,

0:47:100:47:14

so the first thing I did was walk the whole of the National Gallery.

0:47:140:47:18

There was one particular picture called Exhibition of a Rhinoceros in Venice by Longhi.

0:47:180:47:25

I'd been doing the Venice Beach pictures,

0:47:250:47:28

so I thought I could place it in Venice Beach, California.

0:47:280:47:32

So that's a good start. I can go in on the first day and start that picture.

0:47:320:47:38

So it takes... I changed the rhinoceros,

0:47:380:47:41

but the first element of the crowd I copied directly from Longhi's painting.

0:47:410:47:46

And they're obviously dressed in 17th century Venetian clothes with masks on,

0:47:460:47:53

but the next layer of crowd is roller-skaters

0:47:530:47:57

and a bunch of gay men

0:47:570:47:59

who are kind of laughing at the Venetians,

0:47:590:48:03

so a whole story evolved of a rhinoceros in Venice and that was a very good starting point.

0:48:030:48:09

By this stage of your life as an artist, almost 60 years of work,

0:48:090:48:13

is the technique pretty much established or do you come up against things that you can't do?

0:48:130:48:19

Um... My actual way of painting...

0:48:190:48:22

I mean, in some way, you learn the business.

0:48:220:48:25

The first day you paint, you've got this stick in your hand with hairs on the end

0:48:250:48:30

and you've got this surface,

0:48:300:48:32

and you don't know that red and yellow, if you mix them together, make orange.

0:48:320:48:38

You quickly learn the techniques. You're taught the techniques. Luckily, I was.

0:48:380:48:43

So you quickly reach a point of skill and that develops,

0:48:430:48:48

but with my actual painting style, I think it's developed because I've got older.

0:48:480:48:54

I've got better, I think.

0:48:540:48:56

And I'm very much aware now of the unfinishedness of the pictures in the '50s, '60s and '70s,

0:48:560:49:03

so I do tend to complete them now to a certain level standard.

0:49:030:49:09

I never attain the... the finish I see in my mind which we've talked about,

0:49:090:49:16

but they're equally unfinished, if you see what I mean.

0:49:160:49:20

But I've got better, I think.

0:49:200:49:22

Celebrity has been one of your subjects. We live in a culture that's drenched in celebrity now,

0:49:220:49:28

reality TV, blogging and so on.

0:49:280:49:31

Are you alarmed by the way we've ended up in modern culture?

0:49:320:49:36

Some elements of it.

0:49:360:49:38

I mean, about five years ago, I saw one minute of The X Factor.

0:49:380:49:43

I was so horrified by this kid being abused by these horrible people,

0:49:430:49:49

verbally abused,

0:49:490:49:51

I mean, people who shouldn't be auditioning anyway,

0:49:510:49:55

so I very much dislike that kind of celebrity.

0:49:550:49:59

I think footballers are paid too much.

0:49:590:50:02

I admire their skill and I'm still a football fan,

0:50:020:50:05

but I think that element of celebrity probably isn't good for them,

0:50:050:50:10

so there's a whole element of, of...

0:50:100:50:13

I don't know quite how to put it. ..vulgar celebrity that I don't like.

0:50:130:50:19

But I adore someone like Kate Moss who is a celebrity and a character.

0:50:190:50:25

So I suppose I choose my celebrities.

0:50:250:50:28

There should be your level of fame you achieve either through achievement or looks

0:50:280:50:33

or whatever it might be or having a good voice and the level's gone all wrong.

0:50:330:50:38

People are famous who shouldn't be.

0:50:380:50:40

The modern art market has become commercially huge,

0:50:400:50:45

astonishing sums being paid for works of art.

0:50:450:50:48

-Do you ever feel uncomfortable about that?

-I've never been involved with it.

0:50:480:50:53

I've always happily gone along in a kind of middle area

0:50:530:50:58

where...where I've never been...

0:50:580:51:02

Well, I have been broke, but I've never...

0:51:020:51:05

I've always done quite well and I've never done very well.

0:51:050:51:10

It's only really in the last two years that I've become financially secure,

0:51:100:51:16

mainly through printmaking.

0:51:160:51:18

There's an area where I can make a print and it sells and I make some money from it and that's very nice.

0:51:180:51:24

The paintings have... They're just beginning to... A few have sold for a lot of money.

0:51:250:51:32

So maybe I'm about to touch that area,

0:51:330:51:37

but I've never been...

0:51:370:51:39

It's never been a problem, earning too much.

0:51:390:51:43

In general, are you competitive with other artists?

0:51:430:51:47

It is a competition, yes.

0:51:470:51:49

You think you're better than some people and not as good as others.

0:51:490:51:54

But not now.

0:51:540:51:57

I announced my retirement at the age of 65, a conceptual retirement.

0:51:570:52:02

It wasn't a retirement from work,

0:52:020:52:04

but it was a retirement from avarice... And jealousy was one of those things.

0:52:040:52:10

So I'm now not jealous of other artists.

0:52:100:52:14

To answer your question directly, in that manifesto,

0:52:140:52:18

I stopped being competitive and jealous and all those art world things.

0:52:180:52:23

But professionally, you're always competing.

0:52:230:52:27

In the show Homage 10 x 5,

0:52:280:52:30

I've chosen ten artists

0:52:300:52:32

and I'm making five pieces in homage to each of them.

0:52:320:52:36

One of them is Rauschenberg,

0:52:360:52:38

so in a way that's about competition and respect and homage.

0:52:380:52:42

When you say you've conceptually retired from things like jealousy,

0:52:420:52:47

in reality, psychologically, when so-and-so gets amazing reviews or reputation

0:52:470:52:53

or sells for 40 million dollars...

0:52:530:52:55

I'm thrilled, I'm thrilled.

0:52:550:52:57

I mean, really, something worked. I mean, a transformation happened.

0:52:570:53:02

And I can't think of anyone I'm jealous of at the moment.

0:53:030:53:08

-In that list of ten, Damien Hirst is in there.

-Yeah.

-Which would surprise some people.

0:53:080:53:14

Kingsley Amis said in literature that one generation had to despise the generation that came after them,

0:53:140:53:20

the old had to despise the young,

0:53:200:53:22

but the YBAs which some of your generation do quite openly hate, you don't.

0:53:220:53:27

It's interesting. It's an interesting question because I absolutely don't hate.

0:53:270:53:33

I mean, I think I made a point of being their friend.

0:53:330:53:37

I didn't need to be their friend and they didn't need me as a friend,

0:53:370:53:41

but I went in the other direction to despising them and a lot of them still are my friends.

0:53:410:53:48

And I felt...

0:53:480:53:50

I've tried to describe it as a kind of duty almost.

0:53:500:53:54

When I was a young artist, I remember when Francis Bacon, who was a friend,

0:53:540:54:00

but was a bitchy old queen who yelled at me or something,

0:54:000:54:04

so you remember all this stuff.

0:54:040:54:07

And I decided I didn't want to not like them

0:54:070:54:11

and probably went the other way and kind of befriended them and supported them. Not that they needed it.

0:54:110:54:18

But Young British Artists such as Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin,

0:54:180:54:22

were they properly respectful towards you?

0:54:220:54:25

Yeah, I think so. Damien went to Leeds to art school.

0:54:250:54:30

In Leeds, they have my picture called Window

0:54:300:54:33

which is a deep box

0:54:330:54:36

that hangs on the wall, it has a wax head and curtains

0:54:360:54:39

and pictures behind the curtains,

0:54:390:54:42

so to look into it, you've got to become a voyeur

0:54:420:54:45

and you've got to get very close.

0:54:450:54:47

You're suddenly very aware of this wax head as a real head,

0:54:470:54:51

so he'd seen that and admitted to being influenced by it.

0:54:510:54:56

Yeah, I think... I don't know what they say behind my back.

0:54:560:55:00

I'm sure some of them say, "Silly old fart, he's stupid," or whatever,

0:55:000:55:04

but, um...no, I think there's respect, yeah.

0:55:040:55:08

And having announced your conceptual retirement at the age of 65,

0:55:080:55:13

do you contemplate ever actual retirement or will you just keep going?

0:55:130:55:18

I'll keep going. Since then, at the age of 75, I announced that I was into my late period.

0:55:180:55:25

I mean, the idea of that is that I don't want someone, when I've gone,

0:55:260:55:31

deciding that my late period started whenever,

0:55:310:55:35

so it's started already.

0:55:350:55:37

I did have an idea to sign everything and make a stencil saying, "Late period picture number one..."

0:55:370:55:43

I haven't actually done that, but again it's a kind of...

0:55:430:55:47

..a realignment of my attitude to things

0:55:480:55:52

and in a way, in your late period, you can go completely barmy.

0:55:520:55:57

I mean, Picasso did all those extraordinary late erotic pieces,

0:55:570:56:01

so I've given myself another excuse to be naughty and to do what I want to do. And I'm enjoying that.

0:56:010:56:09

Do you have any specific plans as to how you'll go barmy like Picasso in your late period?

0:56:090:56:14

I've done it. Yeah, I'm there. Certain things have happened already.

0:56:140:56:19

Which are the barmy ones?

0:56:190:56:22

Um... It's hard to be specific. I think it's a mood, rather than a particular...

0:56:220:56:28

-But it's a total freedom just...?

-Yeah, total freedom.

0:56:280:56:31

Both mentally and psychologically and aesthetically.

0:56:310:56:35

It's complete freedom from whatever the pressures were before,

0:56:350:56:39

a freedom from critics, from finance.

0:56:390:56:41

Luckily, I'm now financially secure, so it's a freedom from that in a way.

0:56:410:56:46

And it doesn't matter what the critics say any more. It's not going to affect me any more.

0:56:460:56:52

When you're young, when you've done five pictures

0:56:520:56:56

and someone comes along and kicks the shit out of one of them, it is hurtful.

0:56:560:57:01

Now it doesn't matter.

0:57:010:57:03

How much do you care about posterity as to what critics will say in the future,

0:57:030:57:08

as to which paintings will hang in which galleries?

0:57:080:57:12

I'd like to be remembered, but again that little phrase sets me off on another path.

0:57:120:57:18

I mean, which paintings in which galleries?

0:57:180:57:21

My relationship with the Tate, I've never, ever had a picture in Tate Modern,

0:57:210:57:26

unless they haven't told me.

0:57:260:57:30

There was a time about a year ago,

0:57:300:57:32

we went to Tate Britain and there were five shows on that I could have been in.

0:57:320:57:37

There was British Pop Art In The '60s that I wasn't in.

0:57:370:57:42

There was a show of figurative painting that I could have been in.

0:57:420:57:46

They'd done that first show of drawings from the collection which I easily could have been in.

0:57:460:57:53

I literally could have been in every category and I wasn't represented,

0:57:530:57:57

so my relationship with that particular part of the art world isn't comfortable.

0:57:570:58:04

I resent not being represented better.

0:58:050:58:08

-Does that answer your question or was that a mad tirade?

-No, it absolutely does.

0:58:080:58:14

-Sir Peter Blake, thank you.

-It's been a real pleasure.

0:58:140:58:17

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0:58:350:58:40

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